"Does old Sticks look as if he could play a practical joke?"
"No."
"Or my concierge?"
"No."
"Or my washerwoman?"
"No."
"And this radiant little bubble of soapsuds who was just here, what do you think of her?"
But my other self, having nothing more to say, was sensible enough to keep silent, and we slept.
In dreams the pretty washerwoman and the portrait became mixed inextricably. I believed she looked like the portrait—that she was the portrait; and when I awoke in the morning and saw the melancholy eyes hanging opposite my bed, I could not help exclaiming, "Pardi! she does look like him! It is true her eyes are brighter and her dimpled chin rounder; otherwise the faces are the same. And did she not invite me to the house from which the portrait had been brought? I must see her again—the sooner the better." With this I arose and hurriedly dressed, my other self protesting against my resolution the while; but as the physical power is all on my side, he was obliged to accompany me.
We went to No. 42 Notre Dame de Lorette, and were met by the same disagreeable concierge that we had seen before. To my questions he answered that no washerwoman lived in the house, and when I insisted he exclaimed pathetically, "For Heaven's sake go away! I have a wife and six children."